Work environment

Default installation of Arch does not contain any Desktop Environment and therefore forces users to choose one themselves. Most Arch boxes run some X11 Window Manager and/or Desktop Environment but precedents of doing everyday tasks in bare console are also present (proofs?).

Terminal emulators

Power users use terminal emulators quite often, so unsurprisingly lots of X11 terminal emulators exist. Most of them emulate Xterm that emulates VT102, which emulates typewriter, so you will have to read Wikipedia article and other sources to master these things. Some of listed emulators have "quake"-like sequences in names or refer to Quake terminals. If you have not played Quake (really?) or did not pay enough attention to it's terminals – those have no border and are hidden from the desktop until a key is pressed.

Xterm — It is doubtful that you would need more functionality than present in the Xterm, but be ready to tune it a bit to get nice look and working copy-paste

mt — written as nice light-er-weight replacement for sakura (the binary is one third the size), keeping most of the functionality, except settings are defined during compilation, and removes some stupid features

Stjerm — is a GTK+-based drop-down terminal emulator. Stjerm sets itself apart from similar programs by providing a minimalistic interface combined with a small file size, lightweight memory usage and easy integration with composite window managers such as Compiz.

Gedit — Part of the GNOME desktop, but has minimal dependencies: a GTK2 editor with syntax highlighting, automatic indentation, matching brackets, etc., and a number of add-ons to increase functionality

GNOME Do — Inspired by quicksilver, it supports different plugins for various purposes. Originally intended to be used with gnome, but can be used with other Desktop Environments / Window Managers too.